


One Thousand, One Hundred and Thirty

by Tori_Scribbles



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Depression, Everyone Needs A Hug, Families of Choice, Hopeful Ending, Implied Suicide Attempt, M/M, Moving On, Newt (Maze Runner) Lives, Post-The Death Cure, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre Ship But Can Be Read Platonically, Safe Haven (Maze Runner), Survivors Guilt, The Cure, This is nice i swear, Unrealistic Recovery Period, post illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 16:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17227784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tori_Scribbles/pseuds/Tori_Scribbles
Summary: He was infected.He was a crank.He was stabbed.He… he died.But he was alive.





	One Thousand, One Hundred and Thirty

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year ♥

Thump.

Thump thump.

Thump thump.

Thump thump.

Newt’s heartbeat echoed through his ears. Pounding under his skull like his brain was pushing through the bone.

Pain pulsated through every muscle, every nerve and every bone in his body. The mattress under his back, although soft, felt rough beneath him.

A familiar burn set fire to his lungs with each breath and the pain brought back visions of black blood, infected veins, horrified faces and a violent rage.

He was infected.

He was a crank.

He was stabbed.

He… he died.

But he was alive.

Newt’s eyes shot open, gasping for air that he couldn’t find as he looked around at a hut that he didn’t know.

He tried to stand but his legs couldn’t take his weight as pain shot up from his feet and through his back. He stumbled sideways into a table, knocking everything askew. A glass jar toppled and smashed across the tabletop and as shouts from close outside met Newt’s ears, he grasped a stray shard up, holding it in front of him defensively. 

With his other hand, he pushed himself more upright against the table and the movement made the world spin and his ears ring. He scrunched up his eyes to try and ease the discomfort but when he opened them, he could barely see the person stood in front of him.

He remembered WCKD, the Glade and the experiments. And as it came back to him, he raised the shard of glass high, warning the stranger back.

Through blurred vision, he saw the silhouette of someone, standing in the doorway, their hands held up.

They were talking but their voice was quiet and muffled by the blood rushing through Newt’s ears. It took a minute for him to make out the words.

“For fuck's sake, Newt,” the man said, his voice strangely familiar but Newt couldn’t place it. “You’re fine, okay? You’re safe.”

Newt’s fingers curled tighter around the makeshift blade as he tried to focus on the stranger's words. 

Why did they know his name?

“Just let go of the glass. You’re bleeding.”

He looked down to his hand and as the haze cleared, the blood came into sight and the glass slipped from between his fingers. Nausea twisted in his stomach and his knees buckled as he retched dryly.

The man caught him before he hit the floor and eased him back onto the bed. Newt’s good hand curled around the man’s sleeve and he looked up at him desperately.

“Minho,” he rasped, his voice dry and painful. “Minho. What--?”

“They found the cure,” Minho said, holding Newt’s bleeding arm in one hand as he pressed a cup of water to his lips with the other, Newt drank it greedily. “Thomas found the cure and - slower or you’ll choke - and we got to you in time.” He took the cup away, setting it somewhere behind him.

“I stabbed--”

“Yourself. I know,” Minho said shortly. “Don’t remind me, Shuckface. And don’t remind Thomas either. He goes a funny colour whenever anyone mentions it.”

“Where is he?” Newt asked, sinking back against the pillow, trying to relieve the sharp pains shooting through his neck.

“He went for a walk, down on the beach.” Minho’s face tightened in disapproval. “It’s the first time we’ve managed to get him out of here in days.”

Newt nodded slightly as he processed the words.

“How long’s it been?” he asked. The last thing he remembered was struggling for the knife in the courtyard, fighting for control and then he was here. Wherever here was.

“Four days,” Minho said, holding Newt’s hand carefully as he wiped away the blood. “Thomas and Teresa bought WCKD down and he got shot -- slim it, you shank, he’s fine. Lie down. -- He woke up yesterday and has been a pain in the Doc's ass ever since.”

Newt couldn’t help but smile slightly. The day Thomas wasn’t causing issues for someone was the day the world truly ended.

“Where are we?”

Minho faltered, the cloth halfway to Newt’s hand and he smiled down at him. An expression soft and open, which was both happy and sad all at once. “An island,” he said. “I don’t know exactly where. Vince’s heap of rust got us here and it’s far enough away from everything that we’re safe. The Flare never reached here and nobody here is infected. We did it.”

Newt looked up at him, swallowing the lump in his throat as the words sunk in.

Nine hundred and thirty days.

Nine hundred and thirty days he was trapped in the Glade.

Two hundred days spent trekking across the Scorch.

Searching for freedom and fighting anybody who stood in their way.

One Thousand, one Hundred and thirty days lost to WCKD.

They’d lost so many along the way. Newt’s heart clenched painfully as he pictured their faces.

Alby.

Winston.

Chuck.

Ben.

Zart.

Jeff.

Clint.

And they’d gained and lost dozens more as they went.

Refugees and soldiers, all scattered across a desolate country, children freed from torturous experiments, all came together, united for something greater than them.

And what was it all for?

This…

It was for this.

For a life without limits.

The freedom to live their lives whatever way they pleased.

The freedom to make their own choices.

The ability to live.

Newt let out a soft breath, fingers curling into Minho’s forearm slightly. “What’s it like?” he asked. He tried to picture it, but freedom was such a foreign concept that he didn’t know what the picture would look like. “What’s happening?”

Minho’s expression spread into a soft grin as he carefully wove a bandage around Newt’s hand. “It's warm," he said, "and… colourful. Gally’s got a crew of builders, he’s happy enough. There’s more work to do than there was before and it keeps him busy. Frypan’s teaching kids to cook, but he’s really writing recipes the kids in other maze's cooked. He’s experimenting with things.” Minho turned his nose up at the word experimenting and Newt couldn’t help but laugh as they both remembered the days in the Glade when Frypan would add in different ingredients to his stew to try and make it better. Some had worked, others… had not.

“It's good then?” he said with a crooked quirk of his lips. It wasn't quite a smile but it was as close as he could manage to consider all of the recent events.

Minho’s expression mirrored his, “They’d love it here,” he said, “all of them.”

Newt didn't get a chance to respond, the curtain that was standing in place as the door was whisked aside and Thomas stumbled into the room with as much grace as could be expected from him.

“You're awake,” he said sounding out of breath, as though he’d ran halfway across the island to get here, his hand resting cautiously just above his left hip. “Are you--what happened to your hand?”

“The slinthead here tried to stab me with a piece of broken glass,” Minho said with a slight roll of his eyes, “and instead tore his hand open.”

“But you’re okay?” Thomas asked, staring at Newt with that intensity only Thomas could manage, that meant he would tear apart the world to fix whatever was broken.

Newt considered the question for a moment. Because no. He wasn’t okay. He didn’t think he ever had been and right now, nobody was okay. Not after everything they’d been through. But now they were out the other side, away from it all to restart the world and that made something inside of Newt burn. Because he wanted so badly for this to work out even though the prospect of it terrified him.

He tried to give a casual shrug, ignoring the way it pulled at his torn muscles. “I’ll live,” he said and watched as Minho’s expression faltered slightly at the words whereas they just seemed to solidify Thomas’.

“Are one of you shanks going to tell me what happened or am I gonna have to go and find Fry?” Newt asked, finally tired of their careful looks. “Because last time I checked, once you go full crank, there’s no coming back from that.”

The - _Why did I come back from that? -_ hung unspoken in the air.

“Shove over, this is gonna take a while,” Minho said and Newt shifted to the edge of the surprisingly sturdy bed so Minho could lay next to him and Thomas took the hint and sat cross-legged between their feet, leaning back against the support beam that stood at the end of the bed.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked and Newt considered it for a moment. Trying to organise through the fog of his memories and put them in some sort of chronological order.  

“Jumping out of a window,” he said, remembering how much hitting the icy water had hurt. “The city’s walls came down and… I was slowing you down but you wouldn’t leave me.” He swallowed thickly. He met Thomas’ eyes but the memories of the gun in his hand and the knife, swinging them both at Thomas' head was all too much and he looked away quickly. “I remember trying to kill you and then myself.”  He bought his good hand up, brushing his fingers under the top of his shirt where gauze was plastered to his chest.

“We thought you were dead,” Minho said, his voice quiet and hurt. “We tried to get you a serum but we thought we didn’t get there in time. Thomas took the gun and went to find Ava Paige but Brenda… she had the vial of serum and we gave it to you anyway. We don’t know how but you started breathing again.”

Newt looked back up at Thomas. “And did you find her?” he asked and he didn’t mean Ava Paige.

Thomas nodded slightly. “Teresa said my blood was the answer to the cure. That WCKD could cure the Flare if they had my blood.”

Newt’s eyes narrowed as he could see where this was going. If it didn’t hurt so much to move he didn’t know if he’d be able to stop himself from-- Newt forced the anger that rose up back down just as suddenly as it came. That anger led to violence and the violence led to…

“Don’t worry,” Minho said, nudging him lightly, and Newt had to stop himself from wincing at the pain that shot through his arm, “we all already yelled at him. _In-depth._ Gally and Brenda too.”

Newt highly doubted that Gally yelling would have done absolutely anything but he felt slightly better knowing that Brenda had had her say in the matter.

Thomas looked slightly uncomfortable at the memory but didn’t look at all sorry and Newt sighed, unsure of what else he expected.

They told him about Janson turning and Ava’s death, Teresa making the cure and how it all came down to Thomas. Newt listened carefully as they recalled how Janson died and Teresa fell and Newt couldn’t honestly say he was particularly sad about either of their deaths.

As they finished their story Newt took a minute to process it all.

“So, there was one vial of this cure…” he said slowly, looking up between them, “and you used it on me?”

“Yes,” Thomas said without hesitation. “There wasn’t anybody else.”

The sure certainty in his words pulled at something inside of Newt, there wasn’t really a way to describe it. It was just a warmth that Newt wished he could get lost in, and knowing that it wouldn’t last, just made him yearn for it even more.

“So, this place…” he trailed off, trying to change the subject and ease the tension in the hut. “It sounds like a lot out there.”

“They’re still building,” Thomas said, looking to the doorway like he could see through the curtain and look at the commotion outside.

“There’s more people than the Glade,” Minho said, his eyebrows furrowed in an almost frown. “More things are needed and there's more people trying to do stuff.”

Newt remembered the days in the Glade before there was a clear-cut chain of command and scoffed. “It’s going well then.”

Minho rubbed a hand across his face tiredly. “Great,” he said sarcastically, “Vince is still learning that these kids, even the tiny ones, are used to organising and giving orders rather than taking them.”

“Half of the kids know nothing about Vince, they don’t respect him,” Thomas said, looking back to them, “they trust Gally and Brenda more because they got them out.”

“To them, Vince is just another adult trying to tell them how to live,” Minho admitted quietly.

“How many fights?”

Thomas tilted his head to the side as he counted. “In the four days since the city? ...Six? No, five. Harriet hit the guy but he didn’t get back up so it’s not really a fight.”

Newt frowned. That was definitely still a fight and he definitely didn’t want to know.

“And, only three of them were Gally!” Minho chirped up brightly, like Newt would be happy that Gally was only responsible for three out of the five fights there had been. He was just glad that he was no longer in charge and had to be responsible for this bunch of shanks.

“When can I get out of here?” he asked instead and both Minho and Thomas shrugged.

“When the Doc says you can,” Minho said and then pushed himself up onto his elbows with an urgent look on his face. “Did you tell the Doc that he was awake?”

Thomas' expression faltered for a moment. “No,” he said, his eyes wide, “you got here first, I thought you did.”

They held each other's horror-filled gazes for a full minute before Minho launched himself sideways off the bed and ran out of the hut.

Newt looked back to an anxious looking Thomas in confusion. “Who’s the Doc?” he asked and Thomas shrugged slightly.

“Someone Vince picked up before we came here. Apparently, they used to be a Doctor at a city hospital before they joined the right arm,” Thomas said, “aside from the med-ja-- the medics from the mazes, he’s the only other person with medical knowledge.”

Newt nodded, ignoring the way his head ached from taking in all of this new information so quickly.

“What is it?” Thomas leant forwards, his frown deepening in concern.

Newt shook his head slightly. “I’m fine, just a headache,” he tried to say but Thomas was already refilling the cup of water and carefully pressing it into Newt’s trembling hands.

Newt sipped slowly at the lukewarm water until the cup was empty and Thomas set it back on the glass and blood covered table.

The Doctor came in, shocked to see Newt awake and so coherent while Minho and Thomas hovered close together as Newt was checked over. The Doc injected Newt with a fast-acting painkiller and Newt felt himself relax as the burning inside of him melted away.

“When can I leave?” he asked when the Doc started to pack away his stuff. The elderly man shot a look at Thomas and laughed.

“I’ve heard that more in the last few days than I have my entire career,” he said. “Do you have a cabin to go to?”

Newt opened his mouth to say that he didn’t know but Minho got there first. “Yes,” he said. “The five-person one near Jorge’s. There’s a hammock there for him.”

Newt closed his mouth and tried not to look so surprised. He was slightly amazed that there were fully functional cabins in just four days but he said nothing.

In the end, the Doctor decided that as long as Newt came back for twice-daily check-ups and took the pain medication when he required it, then there was no reason for him to be staying in a hut for them to treat a condition they didn’t know the first thing about. They put a new, surprisingly comfortable brace on his bad leg that made the sharp pain lessen and when he put weight on it, for the first time in years, it held. A cane was pressed into his hand, just in case and his former glade mates lead him out of the hut towards the showers.

He ducked through the doorway of the hut and stopped sharply as the warm breeze hit him.

It was breathtaking.

The grass was soft and vibrantly green underfoot.

The air fresh in a way he’d never smelt before. Clear and easy to breathe, leaving just the slightest taste of salt behind when he licked his lips.

Straight ahead of them the deep blue waves lapped over one and other again and again in strangely hypnotic movements and just offshore, bobbing on the water was Vince’s boat, looking as derelict as ever.

On land around them, people were moving together, going about their daily lives. Cabins stood, dotted around the island finished and new. While others had roofs missing and some scarcely had walls. On the other side of them were large canopy like tents, no doubt for things like the kitchen or general communal areas.

It was a community.

In its early stages, and a little messy around the edges. But a community nevertheless, unmanipulated and bigger, with a brighter future than the Glade ever had.

Newt smiled to himself as he took it all in.

With Thomas and Minho at his sides, he had no doubts that he would be happy to call this place home.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it!!


End file.
